Numbers
by Memoirs of a Dream
Summary: A hundred thousand stars, a thousand million planets, a million billion cultures, a billion trillion people... and one spot Rose Tyler calls home. Pure Ten/Rose fluffs.


_A/N: If you recognize it, I don't own it._

* * *

><p><strong>Numbers<strong>

* * *

><p>"<em>How many stars are in the universe?"<em>

"_Oh, millions. Billions. I'm not sure even I know them all."_

"_How many of them can we go see?"_

She could see a hundred thousand stars just by opening the Tardis door and looking out. There was nothing like it anywhere on Earth. How could there be? Rose felt like she could reach out and grab hold of them, fill her hands with glittering points of light and fill the Tardis with their glinting, winking, sparkling beauty. Up close, they could be awesome or terrifying. From here, they were gorgeous.

She wanted to go and see them all.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_How many planets have you been to?"_

"_I've seen more planets than I have stars. Up close, at least."_

"_How many of them can we visit?"_

Planets! There was something so thrilling about planets. A different ground beneath her feet, different atmospheres that nevertheless filled her lungs with crisp, clear air, different skies through which travelled different suns and different moons. And oh, the absolute delight of experiencing all the wonders of creation! Sometimes things looked like Earth but sometimes it was so strange, so incredibly strange, so _wonderfully_ strange, that she nearly lost herself in the beauty of it all.

A thousand million planets were out there, just waiting for her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_How many cultures do you know of?"_

"_Oh, at least a billion. There are a hundred million cultures just in the star systems you can see from Earth."_

"_How many of them will you teach me about?"_

Some cultures were spread out across galaxies. Those were the ones they kept running into, and it wasn't hard to learn them – to learn the traditional laws, and the customs, the food, how to dress to impress. But just as much fun was when they found a culture that was so very limited, one tiny population on a little planet in the middle of nowhere, with bizarre traditions that surprised even the Doctor. She wanted to learn about all of them, to hear the stories and songs of long-dead heroes, to taste their foods and walk their markets, learn their mythologies and their constellations, immerse herself in cultures so completely alien to her own.

A million billion cultures and every one of them so very different; she wanted to encounter them all.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_How many people have you met?"_

"_Oh, Rose, not even a Time Lord could remember them all!"_

"_I bet you could, if you really tried!"_

A billion trillion people lived their lives, some of them – like on Earth – never even knowing just how many there were. But Rose knew, and now she knew why the Doctor travelled. They had made so many friends, even more friends than they had enemies. They had lost so many friends, too. Rose wanted to make as many friends as she could, and not just humans. She wanted to help people, all people, and save them from destruction, and teach them a better way to live just as the Doctor had taught her a better way.

So many people and so, so very little time.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Where's your favorite place in the whole universe, Rose? What you've seen of it, anyway."_

"_I don't have to see it all to know. I know exactly where my favorite place is."_

A hundred thousand stars. A thousand million planets. A million billion cultures. A billion trillion people. But there was only one place she felt happiest, one place that stood out clear and sparkling in her mind. It was the one place Rose always felt safe and warm and happy, the one place nothing could ever be wrong. It was the place she always asked the Doctor to take her, not by her words but by her actions, and the place he'd taken her time and time again, for smaller and smaller reasons the more they travelled together. A place that she loved more dearly than her mum's flat, the apple-grass hill on New Earth, or even the console room of the Tardis.

"_Really? Where is that?"_

"_Right here, in your arms."_

Nothing else could compare.


End file.
